I have disagreed entirely with everything the Halburton administration said and did except the concept of regional rail. There are regions where intercity travel is a must but because of various commuter agencies not working with each other, it doesn't happen and Amtrak is not empowered to address the situation in earnerst. After that there are regions which have close relations with neighboring regions so that there is an opportunity for interconnections between and among regions. I am in favor in long distance trains travel...but it should'nt neccessarily be between Chicago and San Franciso or Seattle but rather a train linking services of different regions. And my favorite mantra: provide a service not just run a train or trains. Amtrak suffers from too much government fed parochialisms by Congress and not by service planniing by transportation specialists. Oh, the specialist are there: they are the frustrated ones.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
henry6 Large urban areas in the US use commuter trains because the service is provided. Corridors use train in the US because service is provided. Where there is no service there is no train, no riders, no support.
Large urban areas in the US use commuter trains because the service is provided. Corridors use train in the US because service is provided. Where there is no service there is no train, no riders, no support.
Perhaps the answer lies in those three sentences. Perhaps the problem is continuing to try to have a national system paid for by the federal government, when a national long distance system is impractical and not competitive. Cities, metro areas, states and regions are where passenger rail transport is thriving and growing. That is where the creative ideas are - North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Illinois - to name a few on the state level. And that is where the money probably needs to come from.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
It is all about national public attitude as shaped by the oil and highway lobby post WWII especially. Other countries use passenger trains because the trains and the service is provided. Large urban areas in the US use commuter trains because the service is provided. Corridors use train in the US because service is provided. Where there is no service there is no train, no riders, no support. While its not a "field of dreams" propsoition, it is a field of dreams proposition when service, not running trains, when service is provided. Until we learn that the oil, gas, and highway lobby is not all there is, that they choke us every which way we can be choked, we will never have real passenger rail service, service that is and not just running trains.
Schlimm,
You are correct there are some cases where the market does not work. As a general proposition the Federal Government, with a limited role, was created to deal with the most important of these, National Defense.
The problem is that the politicians seem to be incapable of resisting the temptation to spend the people's money to benefit some identifiable subgroup. As a result we have government run amok and interfearing in all mannner of markets that would work perfectly well except for government interfearance. Transportation is one of a multitude of areas where that is true. The problem is people think the way it is, after 150 years of meddling, is the was it has to be, or the only way it can be.
I see no reasons for the politicians to change their behavior short of "we the people" yelling loudly and continuously STOP, STOP, GET BACK TO THE THINGS ONLY YOU CAN DO. Fortunately I see some reason to hope on this front due to the multiple Govt. budget crises, but I will not hold my breath waiting for a retreat to things that only the Government can realistically do.
Mac
Mac: I agree with most of your post. However: 1. There are several routes outside the NEC that are moving in the right direction and would probably survive the end of ATK. 2. The market, though a useful method of allocation, is not the universal "be all end all" in every human endeavor.
Henry.
With .01% market share ATK is not serious transportation. Sure it is nice to be able to get out of Wolf Creek Montana in February, but why should BNSF pay for that capability by being forced to accept less than market rates for the capacity the Empire Builder absorbs?
If we carred about effecient effective service the Congress would require that ATK pay market rates for the capacity it uses as a start. That would cause the carriers' to view ATK as a valuable customer rather than a herd of leaches. Then Congress would abolish the ATK monopoly and cut off funds for everything but the NEC. Everything outside the NEC would die overnight.
If at some point in time real demand for rail passenger service developed, then anyone could go the railroad and purchase the capacity to operate however many trains they thought would make money. Let the market rule!
No one is going to do this until the passenger market changes substantially. ATK is just a 12 inch to the foot model railroad and welfare program that absorbs capacity the carriers could otherwise use to get freight off the highways, which if you asked the question, IS something the general public would like to see. Best of all "we the people" would not wasting Billions of dollars per year on the dead horse we know as ATK..
Paul Milenkovic PNWRMNM: Henry, To the extent the freight carriers pay attention to the bonuses the real world practical effect is to delay freight trains since the individual dispatcher's incentive is to avoid the black mark on his record caused by a decision to advance a freight against a passenger train in a situation that carries ANY risk of delay to the passenger train. How is my forced low rate rent of a bedroom in your house incorrect? I will be happy to move into your house on these "Amtrak" terms, marginal rent and rent my own place out at market rent. Mac You must be new around here. Passenger trains are inherently good, and anything done to interfere with them -- not fund them, not give them priority and let freight traffic park on a siding, compare them to stage coaches (or clipper ships! The remark about clipper ships is incitement to a good scolding) -- all of those things are intrinsically bad. As it has been said by others around here, you get what you pay for. Amtrak pays some marginal rate for the use of the tracks, and Amtrak sits on sidings. Amtrak incurs the cost of owning the railroad (NEC), and Amtrak offers frequent, on-time service. There is another angle on this, that of "slots." It has been said by some defenders of the freight railroads that Amtrak's time-keeping problems on long-distance trains are of their own making. The host railroad allocates a "slot" where the passenger train is free to run fast free of freights. If Amtrak misses that slot, owing to maintenance problems, lack of a crew, whatever, then Amtrak gets to lump along with the general flow of freight traffic. Don Oltmann, you once told us you were going to explain this "slots" thing, what it means to Amtrak and to freight operations, what is means to capacity of a freight line, what are the limits on the capacity of a freight line to host passenger traffic. Inquiring railfans and passenger train advocates want to know.
PNWRMNM: Henry, To the extent the freight carriers pay attention to the bonuses the real world practical effect is to delay freight trains since the individual dispatcher's incentive is to avoid the black mark on his record caused by a decision to advance a freight against a passenger train in a situation that carries ANY risk of delay to the passenger train. How is my forced low rate rent of a bedroom in your house incorrect? I will be happy to move into your house on these "Amtrak" terms, marginal rent and rent my own place out at market rent. Mac
Henry,
To the extent the freight carriers pay attention to the bonuses the real world practical effect is to delay freight trains since the individual dispatcher's incentive is to avoid the black mark on his record caused by a decision to advance a freight against a passenger train in a situation that carries ANY risk of delay to the passenger train.
How is my forced low rate rent of a bedroom in your house incorrect? I will be happy to move into your house on these "Amtrak" terms, marginal rent and rent my own place out at market rent.
You must be new around here. Passenger trains are inherently good, and anything done to interfere with them -- not fund them, not give them priority and let freight traffic park on a siding, compare them to stage coaches (or clipper ships! The remark about clipper ships is incitement to a good scolding) -- all of those things are intrinsically bad.
As it has been said by others around here, you get what you pay for. Amtrak pays some marginal rate for the use of the tracks, and Amtrak sits on sidings. Amtrak incurs the cost of owning the railroad (NEC), and Amtrak offers frequent, on-time service.
There is another angle on this, that of "slots." It has been said by some defenders of the freight railroads that Amtrak's time-keeping problems on long-distance trains are of their own making. The host railroad allocates a "slot" where the passenger train is free to run fast free of freights. If Amtrak misses that slot, owing to maintenance problems, lack of a crew, whatever, then Amtrak gets to lump along with the general flow of freight traffic.
Don Oltmann, you once told us you were going to explain this "slots" thing, what it means to Amtrak and to freight operations, what is means to capacity of a freight line, what are the limits on the capacity of a freight line to host passenger traffic. Inquiring railfans and passenger train advocates want to know.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
henry6 Bluestreak, you're proving my point that pride is a lot but does not carry alway carry to the bottom line!
Bluestreak, you're proving my point that pride is a lot but does not carry alway carry to the bottom line!
I agree. Pride only works when it has public relations value. Best example: UP steam program. Has to cost gobs of money and collects very little.
Mac...lack of rail passenger service has a negative effective on many communities' economies...it is a "quality of life" factor. There are also some communities that the only saving grace is that there is a passenger train (long distance train) as in the case of the Empire Builder and such routes. You should actually read back through the many posts, threads, and forums on this subject just on this site. The general population has said time and time again they would ride trains if the proper service was provided (proper service is the key, not just running a train or trains) witness Downeast service in Maine, witness a lot of Calafonia and Northwest programs, witness virtually any service designated "corridor" of some kind. Only the still stubborn highway lobby holds on to the feelings you have about Amtrak and passenger trains. But enlightened truck and highway managements (government planners at all levels) are regarding rail as a way of helping move freight and people in the furture.
LA Rams,
I explained why ATK is a drag on the industry in previous posts in this thread.
Dave,
I see no evidence that ATK is a positive point of contact with the public for the industry. It is a source of complaint from ATK itself and from those individuals who have something negative happen on their trip.
I too was in the industry and I too remember when the Empire Builder and the North Coast Limited were things of beauty and pride. ATK destroyed all that the day they took over. Explain to me how being abused by one "special" customer translates into carrier pride.
I'm not sure that the lack of passenger service after 1967 had a negative effect on Frisco, Monon or other freight-only operations and it definitely was favorable to their bottom line.
PNWRMNM Paul, I am not new here but usually avoid the passenger side since it is a drag on the entire industry and most of the posters have no sense of the real world or of history. You are one of the few exceptions. There is so much nonsense and blather on the passenger side that I am as a sparrow in a hurricane, so why should I waste my breath trying to educate those who don't want to know the truth, or do not car if they do know? Mac
Paul,
I am not new here but usually avoid the passenger side since it is a drag on the entire industry and most of the posters have no sense of the real world or of history. You are one of the few exceptions.
There is so much nonsense and blather on the passenger side that I am as a sparrow in a hurricane, so why should I waste my breath trying to educate those who don't want to know the truth, or do not car if they do know?
PNWRMNM - Please explain how the passenger side is a "drag" on the entire industry. I'm in the industry and remember when the passenger train (particularly the UP-MILW "Cities" trains) were the main attraction.
1. Pasenger trains remain the main contact of the industry with the USA public despite the small numbers of actual passengers. Positive contact. There is lots of negative contact: grade crossings, without consideration that mostly the railroad was there first.
2. Without useful passenger trains, there really would be mostly negative contact. How many class I's run UP steam program and how many towns actually get Santa Claus specials?
3. The American public, not railfans, but the general public, want a national passenger train system, as some sort of security blanket back-up. Like hospitals. "Hope I don't have to use it but I want it there in case!" And they are willing to pay for it.
4. The average auto driver pays only about 57% of the actual costs of his driving. The rest is made up by taxpayers. The figure would be a lot higher if we factored in the cost of mideast wars to keep the Saudi and other Gulf nations oil flowing.
There is so much nonsense and blather on the passenger side that I am as a sparrow in a hurricane, so why should I waste my breath trying to educate those who don't want to know the truth, or do not care if they do know?
henry6 Be careful, Oltman, about running passenger trains for pride...Claytor did that with the Southern Crescent and he still handed it over to Amtrak. Pride is not enough to fill the bottom line the way stockholders want to see it.
Be careful, Oltman, about running passenger trains for pride...Claytor did that with the Southern Crescent and he still handed it over to Amtrak. Pride is not enough to fill the bottom line the way stockholders want to see it.
Henry: Claytor did turn over the Southern Crescent but someone else alluded to the real proble they did. It was equipment plain and simple that was worn out.
1. SOU was running charter and extra sections up to that time but the back up equipment was all heavyweight equipment with friction bearings and AMTRAK did not want them in interchange service. So that charter service was limited to all SOU routings.
2. The light weight equipment that SOU had was mostly Pullman Standard equipment and the rusting out problem of that equipment is well known.
3. SOU had 16 steam generator Es that were needed to cover the daily Wash - ATL and Tri weekly ATL - NOL. Some F units were kept as back up as well. Ran the trains with 4 units to preserve reliability.
4. AMTRAK did not like keeping a few E-60s for Crescent WASH - NYP with steam generators as AMTRAK equipment was rapidly going to HEP. I believe they had 4 E-60 so equipped at the end of SOU service.
5. Although SOU did give some equipment to AMTRAK the equipment was quickly sidelined.
PNWRMNM Henry, To the extent the freight carriers pay attention to the bonuses the real world practical effect is to delay freight trains since the individual dispatcher's incentive is to avoid the black mark on his record caused by a decision to advance a freight against a passenger train in a situation that carries ANY risk of delay to the passenger train. How is my forced low rate rent of a bedroom in your house incorrect? I will be happy to move into your house on these "Amtrak" terms, marginal rent and rent my own place out at market rent. Mac
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I missed the mortgage analagy but reading it I don't agree with what you say. I also dissagree with your final statemtn about freight carriers being better off without Amtrak. I think the opposite. I think that if freight railroads were smart they would usea passenger train's schedule from which they would have to run their trains...forcing a freight into making it through the next block or to terminal; to be someplace at a particular time; to give crews a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishiment of not just making another trip and get paid but of doing with pride of having made it on time satisfying not the railroad's but the customers who actually pay their wages. And compareing Amtrak to stagecoaches and clipper ships is another attitiude problem Amtrak and any passenger service faces in this country, too. It is actually a regressive attitude.
The bonuses and incentives are simply a way for ATK to pay less when something goes haywire or heaven forbid actually chooses to serve a paying customer as opposed to the freeloader.
I notice you did not respond to the forced rent of you house analogy.
Yes, they charge "by law" and then hold up Amtrak for performance "incentives" and "bonuses" so that a passenger train can go one more block before being shunted into a siding for a respite. Do you give your waiter/waitress performance incentives to bring you your soup or salad or entree faster than the next table's? Or do you pay the supermarket a bonus if they take your cart full of groceries ahead of five others in line? No, Amtrak pays dearly for the ability of running as close to on time as possible.
The railroads are prohibited by law from charging ATK "dearly" for the use of their capacity. BY LAW they can charge only the marginal cost of the passenger train.
Think of it this way. You bought a house and raised a family. You have a four bedroom house because that is what you decided you needed. Now it is just you and your wife. The government comes in and says since you used to have kids you have to rent to someone with kids, but you can only charge them the marginal cost that you incur.
What is your marginal cost? A proration of the mortgage? No, you already have to pay it regardless of whether your unwanted tenant is there or not. How about utilities? Only if you can prove how much of each the tenant uses! Market rent? Oh no, marginal cost, not the value of the service in the market.
Oh by the way they have first rights to the kitchen, you can use it when they do not want it. Then to add insult to injury their freinds come over and complain that your grass is not properly cut and trimed!
The freight carriers would be far, far better off if Amtrak joined the stagecoach and the clipper ship in that great transportation museum in the sky.
PNWRMNM Henry, Oh contrare your last statement ". . . a whole hearted attempt to relieve private business railroads from having to pay for the privilige of running passenger trains." The freight carriers are still "paying for the privilge" through noncompensatory payments for the use of their railroads by Amtrak. If Amtrak paid like a freight train that would be fair. As it is Amtrak is a hidden tax on the rail industry. The reason the carriers are not complaining is that the arguement is too obscure for the majority in congress and the carriers have far bigger fish to fry with their limited political capital. Mac
Oh contrare your last statement ". . . a whole hearted attempt to relieve private business railroads from having to pay for the privilige of running passenger trains."
The freight carriers are still "paying for the privilge" through noncompensatory payments for the use of their railroads by Amtrak. If Amtrak paid like a freight train that would be fair. As it is Amtrak is a hidden tax on the rail industry.
The reason the carriers are not complaining is that the arguement is too obscure for the majority in congress and the carriers have far bigger fish to fry with their limited political capital.
That's why the effort is half hearted to keep rail passenger service. But there is more track mileage not carrying passenger traffic, more loopholes and and rules so that freight railroads don't have to run passenger trains nor has to just let Amtrak run a train. Freight railroads are getting paid to run trains...it is just on their terms and not Amtrak's. What? do you think Amtrak just says it's gonna run a passenger train the the private railroads have to roll over and play dead? They charge Amtrak, and charge dearly, to allow Amtrak to run on their tracks. Where they pay is when they don't do it right.
Be careful, Oltman, about running passenger trains for pride...Claytor did that with the Southern Crescent and he still handed it over to Amtrak. Pride is not enough to fill the bottom line the way stockholders want to see it. But I still wonder that if Amtrak was not created if there would have been another dynamic which would have helped run passenger trains. Of course, it is easy conjecture to say that without passenger trains highways would be more crowded and airplanes, too. But it is really difficult to gather in all the scenerios and sub scenerios, what ifs and what if nots...it is actually a dreamers world. The reality is that Amtrak was formed in a half hearted show of supporting passenger rail and a whole hearted attempt to relieve private business railroads from having to pay for the privilige of running passenger trains.
The problem was Penn Central. They had by far, the most passenger trains operating at the time of Amtrak's creation. They would have needed relief one way or another. Interestingly, even the creation of Amtrak didn't fully solve the passenger train problem for Amtrak. It took two more doses of medicine. One was the direct ownership of the NEC by Amtrak in 1976 and the other was the complete relief of any operating responsibility for Amtrak or commuter train operation in 1980.
So, I'd guess that without Amtrak, the NEC would still have been sold off, probably to the state commuter operating authorities and there could have been some continued Federal support for through service on the route - a continuation of the Metroliner/TurboTrain project.
PC would have needed to be relieved of all the LD trains they operated, so those probably would have been gone by the mid 1970s, with other road that were itching for train-offs quickly following, particularly if they could show they were susceptible to PC railroad rot disease.
I did read in "Leaders Count" that BN would have kept the Empire Builder going - pretty much for pride - had Amtrak came along. Perhaps the ATSF would have kept the Super Chief. Could these have morphed into "tourist trains"? SCL wasn't doing too badly with the NY-Florida trains, and AutoTrain was perking along. Perhaps they might have hung in there.
One thing that wouldn't have occurred would be the purchase of new equipment. The railroads were having trouble just covering the year-to-year capital requirements and there wasn't much room for any "extras" that had a negative, or very, very low ROI. We'd still be riding in old Budd equipment on whatever trains were left.
Amtrak really isn't a huge burden on the frt RRs, despite what UP used to say. It has become more and more difficult to get the Amtrak trains over the road as operations have changed over the years, but I don't know of any RR campaigning to kill off the Amtrak trains on their road.
The carriers would have continued to pull trains off and would have exited the business shortly. Something very much resembling Amtrak would have taken over the Northeast Corridor in the wake of the Penn Central bankruptcy.
Today's freigh carriers would be blissfully free of Amtrak and all would be much better than it is.
[quote user="CSSHEGEWISCH"]
..... Consider that the Santa Fe's passenger service just prior to Amtrak had an operating ration of around 200% and most of the other roads had passenger operating ratios of 150-180%...
So let's add another what if at this point...what if they did have to stay in the passenger business, and what if they decided to market and charge for the services. They have found that to be true of freight...businesses will pay a premium or at least a fair price for the service they want, why couldn't passengers be sold the same way? Part of the thinking is that if they are business people making the decision they would also think the same about hauling themselves with the same rationale. The major problems Americans face is the fact that government has shielded them from real costs in transportation by first taking over turnpikes and canals, then by forcing railroads into charging only what the governments wanted them to charge. The worst case was New York City and the State of New York not allowing private transit companies to raise the nickle fare from its pre 1910 inception...it was, what, about 1949 or 50 before the nickle fare was abandoned and by then the transit system was owned and operated by the City. Farmer's had the Grange keeping thier rates down until the ICC came along and then the ICC protected truckers from railroad rates.
I seriously doubt that intercity passenger service would have lasted much longer as a private operation if the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1971 was not passed. Consider that the Santa Fe's passenger service just prior to Amtrak had an operating ration of around 200% and most of the other roads had passenger operating ratios of 150-180%. Turning that much red ink into black ink was not realistic under any circumstance and the ICC was also starting to become more willing to allow discontinuances after the Penn Central bankruptcy. Liberalization of labor laws and work rules was probably equally unrealistic at the time. Hosmer's prediction of an end to intercity passenger service by 1975 would have probably come true.
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